Up There
by Simply-Cath
Summary: John has an interesting morning aboard Thunderbird 5 that only seems to get worse


Hi, everyone, this is my first Thunderbirds story and I thought you'd all enjoy it. As you all know, Thunderbirds does not belong to me (if they did, I'd be busy swimming around in my pool of money). They belong to Gerry Anderson and anyone else he would like to give credit to.

If you all like this story, my friend and I have every intention of posting several fics, just as soon as we're finished writing them.

Now, on with the fic:

Up There

By: Catherine 

John Tracy awoke in a very bizarre fashion - by hitting his head on the ceiling. "What on Earth?" he murmured, rubbing the small goose egg that was forming. The tall blond took stock of the situation. Everything in his small bedroom that was not nailed down was floating around him.

The young man was on Thunderbird Five, the communications port of International Rescue. His one-month term of duty was only beginning, but it appeared that the artificial gravity generator was somehow malfunctioning. Being a former astronaut, John knew how to handle a zero gravity situation. The eldest Tracy brother closed his eyes and made himself aware of his centre of gravity. So long as he didn't make any hasty movements, he could control his speed and direction.

As he dodged past various small items around the space station, John knew that he could probably fix the problem by himself. There would be no need to call in his family, who were no doubt sleeping comfortably on Tracy Island. Thunderbird Five had been programmed to follow the exact night-day pattern of the Island, so as not to throw off the internal clock of the person manning the station, be it John or his youngest brother Alan.

He made his way slowly towards the main area of the station. Fortunately, most of the equipment in here was bolted down, so there was a good chance nothing would be damaged. With something akin to amusement, John noticed the microphone he used to speak to people who contacted International Rescue floating peacefully, firmly attached to his communications panel. At least _that_ wasn't going anywhere.

Grabbing a nearby support structure on the ceiling, John was now immobile. He grabbed one bar at a time and made his way over to the panel which contained the station's internal instrumentation. Most of the equipment on board was designed for reception/transmission of messages, but of course, there had to be some to control things such as the lighting, heating and gravity on the station.

"Well that's just perfect," murmured John as he stared down at the instruments. Even from the ceiling, he could see that the panel monitoring gravity controls had gone dead.

That meant that the main fuse itself was either damaged or burnt out. John sighed deeply and began to navigate his way towards the engineering compartment. Under normal circumstances, the repair would be quite simple. It was quite another thing to do it while floating in the air.

The engineering compartment wasn't much bigger than the sleeping area, but it had a lot of machinery in it. Since Alan and John were both well trained in making small repairs, they kept quite a few tools in the area. However, Alan had a tendency to forget to return things to their proper location. As it was, most of the tools in the room were floating above his head in a tangled mess. 

John squinted and eventually found what he was looking for the laser wielder. It was a small device, grey in colour, about twenty centimeters long and fifteen thick, with a sharp white tip where the laser emerged. It had the power to cut through a small bit of bulkhead to allow him to see what was damaged and correct it.

"This is not my morning. This is simply not my morning." John could hardly believe his rotten luck. The laser wielder was malfunctioning! It must have been damaged while being jostled around with the other pieces of equipment.

Speaking of being jostled, John had managed to divert most of the airborne debris to one side of the space station. However, even with that done, he still had one more thing to do, something he had been dreading all morning. He'd tried everything he could think of to avoid making this call - now he simply had no choice. He didn't have the right equipment to fix this problem.

He had to call Tracy Island for help.

Jeff Tracy was the first one awake, as usual. The grey haired patriarch of International Rescue was dressed comfortably, seated behind his desk as he nursed a cup of coffee. None of his boys were awake yet, so he took a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet. Not that he minded the sounds of his sons teasing each other and engaging in their various hobbies. After all, he'd done everything he could to provide his boys with a peaceful life on Tracy Island. It gave him great pleasure to see them enjoying themselves. Since there had been no calls for help in weeks, everyone was feeling relaxed and took the opportunity to sleep in.

A subtle beeping noise disrupted the quiet. Jeff swiveled around in his chair and noticed the eyes on the photograph of his son John blinking. "An emergency, this early…?" Jeff shook his head. Then again, International Rescue was a worldwide organization and many countries did not operate in the same time zone as they did. Also, John might have been communicating to say good morning, but it was hardly like his eldest son to clutter up the frequency like that. Oh well, he'd be able to ascertain the trouble pretty quickly.

All of these thoughts ran through Jeff's head in the time it took him to reach underneath his desk and tap the button that would open the frequency. A moment later the screen activated and Jeff got his first glimpse of his son's … torso?

"Dad," began John before his father could do more than gape. "Something funny happened this morning--"

Changing clothes turned out to be an interesting experience. After communicating the trouble to his father, John decided that he should probably change out of his robe and pajamas. Though he usually wore his IR uniform when he was on duty, John also had a few other shirts and pants around as well. At this moment, they were all floating on the ceiling in a gaggle of sleeves and pant legs. 

It took some doing for John to untangle his uniform from the floating mess, but he managed quite well. Actually getting into the outfit was a whole other story. John was not the type to utter profanity, but in this case he was sorely tempted. He bumped his head three times trying to get the socks on, and sent his whole body into an uncontrollable three hundred and sixty-degree turn to get his pants on. The shirt was relatively easy; he simply navigated his body towards it and slipped his arms into the sleeves. 

After this morning, he vowed to bring fewer changes of clothes onto the station.

Alan Tracy didn't mind taking Thunderbird Three up to check on his brother. The youngest Tracy sibling enjoyed making the familiar flight. Alan was twenty-one years old, with light blond hair and blue eyes. Although he was the youngest he was mature beyond his years.

The moment his craft exited the stratosphere, he put the ship on autopilot and took a moment to change into his blue uniform, complete with sash and cap. His father hadn't precisely told him what was wrong, just that there was a problem with the gravity controls on Thunderbird Five that needed to be repaired right away. If the problem posed a real threat to his brother, Alan knew that his dad would have been far more concerned. That and Brains, the engineer would have come along as well. However, Jeff had stated that Alan going alone would be sufficient. And his voice, he'd sounded kind of funny; but Alan couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The ship began to approach the space station. Alan took manual control again and began the docking procedure. He had the cutting laser fastened securely to his hip. Before stepping on board, Alan contacted John to inform him that he was coming onboard. By now, he could guess what the problem was. Among other things, he could see his brother floating by the viewing port, as though he's somehow obtained his own orbital flight path.

"Hey, John," Alan grinned, "How's the air up there?"

"Just hand me the laser wielder," snapped John in an uncharacteristically surly tone.

Alan couldn't suppress a grin; this was going to be fun. "Coming right up." With that, he cut the connection and opened the airlock to allow himself into the space station. "What seems to be the trouble, J-whoa!" Alan's question ended with a startled yelp as his feet left the ground. He barely got his hands up in time to avoid smacking his head against the ceiling. Being an astronaut, he soon adjusted, but it had been a long time since he'd been in Zero-G and he found it a little disconcerting.

"Did somebody forget to turn _on_ his magnetic boots?" queried John. He was strangely relieved to have somebody else in this predicament as well.

Instead of replying, the youngest Tracy sibling glared at his brother. One hand pressed flat against the roof for support, he reached into his sash and detached the laser wielder. As he reached out to hand it to his brother, his bracing hand slipped and his body did a flip. The wielder flew out of his hands and began to float amongst the other things.

Breathless, Alan took a moment to get his bearings back. He saw his brother navigating towards the device, which was spinning around madly. In moments, the oldest and youngest of the Tracy brothers were scrambling madly to catch the device before it could be damaged. They dodged past other floating phenomena, including the faulty laser wielder, the ever floating microphone and some clothing that had managed to float into the main area. Throughout the chase, Alan could hear his brother muttering about how this wasn't his day.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes of fumbling, grabbing and involuntary rotations, John managed to snag the wielder. He repeated his process of grabbing the support structures and noticed that Alan was just a bit too far away to do the same. John made his way over to the bulkhead where the gravity control circuits were relayed and sliced it open at a low level. 

He grinned when he noticed that the problem was simple: a few of the circuits had fused. It would only take a bit of fancy wiring to bypass the damaged circuitry. After the immediate problem was fixed, Brains could forward him some replacement parts and he could take care of it for good. Until then, he would settle for having his feet on the ground.

Biting his lower lip in concentration, John set to work. It only took a minute or so. Just as he was about to connect the last wire, he noticed Alan making his way to a support strut out of the corner of his eye. Grinning, John grabbed a support strut with one hand and activated the circuitry.

Alan let out a startled yelp as he, and the rest of the floating things, fell to the ground. He could tell that he would have a devil of a bruise on his hip before the day was through. "Ow," he snapped, scowling at his brother, who was dangling serenely from one of the metal struts.

John grinned down at him, "How's the air down there?" He let himself drop, landing on the ground gracefully. He walked over and held out his hand to his sibling, who yanked himself up with a little more force than necessary.

The two International Rescue agents began to straighten up the mess, their pseudo argument forgotten. Alan had one additional surprise: Kyrano had made them both breakfast. Both men knew that the station's rations didn't exactly have the best taste, so they knew the value of Kyrano's home cooked Eggs Florentine. They took their time eating, teasing each other and chatting about what new things were happening on Tracy Island. Then, the brothers set to work cleaning up most of the mess. After nearly an hour, Alan had to return home

When he walked into the round room in Tracy mansion, Alan was exhausted. He'd forgotten just how tiring moving around in Zero-G was. Now that he was back in regular gravity, he felt heavy and sore. That and the bruise on his hip was really starting to sting.

Scott, Virgil, Gordon, Jeff and Brains were all waiting for him. "Dah, h-how did everything go, Alan?"

"Problem's taken care of," Alan said, walking towards his room. "John will call you later so you can order what he needs. The repair he did is temporary." 

"Hey, Alan," Gordon called out. "Why are you limping?"

Alan was torn between the desires to glare and grin, "Don't ask!" he exclaimed, a smile in his voice. "It's been a weird morning." As the rest of his family chuckled and began to talk about the rest of the day, Alan made his way to his room for some much-needed rest.

THE END


End file.
